Your favorite art form is one you haven't tried yet
Your mission
The Five-Week Show
Finish all five weeks, then spread every piece and photo across the table with your art partner. Take turns picking a favorite from each art form and inventing a goofy award name for it.
Bonus challenge: Agree on the one art form that still feels shaky and give it a second week together.
Can you and a friend try five art forms in five weeks? Set up one small table, meet three times a week for 90 minutes, and take turns at drawing, watercolor, clay, carved prints and collage. At the end, you lay it all out and pick each other's favorite.
Five weeks, five art forms, one little table with a good lamp on it. You start with fast scribbly drawings, then chase watercolor puddles, then pinch clay, carve a printing block and glue a collage together. Each week is a fresh start, so nothing can go badly wrong for long. None of it has to look good. A gesture drawing is meant to be messy, and a lopsided clay pot absolutely counts. Photograph each piece before you tidy up, because week five ends with you and your art partner laying everything out and handing out silly awards.
Most people pick one craft, hit a bad night, and quietly stop. Trying five takes the pressure off every one of them. A soggy watercolor doesn't sting when clay is only seven days away, and by the carving week your hands already move differently than they did on day one. Something always clicks. You just can't guess which.
Top gear to make this quest great.
Pull it off
Daylight-colored light shows true colors, so tonight's paint mix still looks right tomorrow.
Holds the block still so the carving blade can't slip toward your hand.
Week four needs a block to carve, and the softer ones cut easily for beginners.
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Good news: you need less than you think. Essentials are a clear table about three feet square, a daylight desk lamp so colors look true, newsprint and charcoal, watercolor paints with thick watercolor paper (140lb), air-dry clay, a soft linoleum block with a carving tool set, water-based block printing ink, and collage scraps with matte medium. Handy extras: clear stackable bins, a palette with a sealing lid so paint stays usable, and a wall calendar to tick off sessions. Pick your weekly times with your partner before week one.
A good quest stays a good story. These are general notes; your gear's manual, the venue's rules and local law come first.
Every art habit needs a home. Clear a surface about three feet square, clamp the lamp to one edge and angle it across your work so colors read honestly. Sort supplies into clear bins, one per art form, so a session starts in two minutes instead of fifteen. Then lock in your three 90-minute slots for the week with your partner.
Start where mistakes are invited. Each session, fill three to five sheets of newsprint with quick drawings: follow the outline of whatever is in front of you without lifting your eyes, then shade the dark parts. Two minutes a drawing is plenty. Swap sheets with your partner at the end and laugh at the weirdest one.
Now the messy stretch. In week two, make four to six small watercolor studies a session on the thick paper: paint into wet paper and let colors bloom, paint onto dry paper for sharp edges, then float a thin wash over dry color. Week three is clay: pinch, coil and press two to four palm-sized forms and push texture into the surface.
This is the week that feels like a real print shop. Brace the soft block against a bench hook, then carve a bold simple shape: the narrow V-shaped blade for lines, the wide U-shaped one for clearing big areas, always cutting away from yourself. Roll on water-based ink and pull eight to ten prints. Give your partner the best one.
Last art form, and it's the loosest one. Build two or three collages each session, using at least three different materials in every piece: magazine scraps, tickets, fabric, a reject print from last week. Brush matte medium underneath and on top to hold it all down. Snap a photo of each finished piece before you clear the table.
Five weeks, five art forms, one table covered in proof. Spread the drawings, paintings, clay forms, prints and collages out, with your phone photos for anything already put away. Take turns picking a favorite from each art form and giving it a ridiculous award name. Most Honest Pinch Pot is a real honor.
You drew, painted, pinched, carved and glued your way through five art forms, and your table shows it. Pick your proudest piece and send a photo to your art partner.
You bring the curiosity. We've found the tools.
Pull it off
Daylight-colored light shows true colors, so tonight's paint mix still looks right tomorrow.
Holds the block still so the carving blade can't slip toward your hand.
Get on Amazon · $18.08 — Bench hookdetails & deals →
Week four needs a block to carve, and the softer ones cut easily for beginners.
Get on Amazon · $20.99 — Soft linoleum carving blocksdetails & deals →
Prints crisply and washes off with soap and water, so no solvents on your table.
Get on Amazon · $29.99 — Water-based block printing inkdetails & deals →
The sealing lid keeps your watercolors soft all week and stops colors muddying together.
Ceramic or plastic palette with 20+ wells and sealing lid to keep paints workable between sessions
Get on Amazon · $13.44 — Multi-Well Palette with Airtight Lidwhat to look for & our pick →RELATED GEAR GUIDE
10 Pieces of Cyanotype Sun Printing Gear Worth Buying in 2026
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Where this one naturally leads next.
Let your hands audition five crafts and choose
Which craft would your hands actually love? Over three to four weeks you'll take a beginner workshop in clay, then weaving, printmaking, glass and metal, one studio at a time. Each runs about two and a half hours with materials included, and you leave holding something you made. Bring a friend and make it a standing date.
Your whole table starts this one clueless, and that's the fun
Gather four or five friends around one table, pick one art medium nobody has tried, and give yourselves 90 minutes to make something. Watch a short tutorial together, then race the timer. Halfway through, everyone walks the table and says one nice, specific thing about someone else's piece.
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